Thursday, October 30, 2014

A Key to Jewish Engagement: Developing Jewish Social Capital

When
I was fourteen, I went to BBYO leadership camp for the first time. I had been raised in a committed Jewish home, but it
was one
that practiced non-religious Judaism, and while I was a regular at Jewish overnight summer camp, Shabbat
services in BBYO still felt uncomfortable to me. A non-believer, I
was also new to the language of prayer, and I was never sure what to
do with myself.

At that BBYO leadership camp one Shabbat morning, I stood next to a friend from
home (let's call him Jamie). He was a bit of a joker, and when at some point I dropped my
prayerbook on the floor and he told me to kiss it, I thought he was
making fun of me. Several times, he instructed me to kiss the book;
several times, I laughed. As we went back and forth, Jamie got
increasingly more frustrated and impatient until he grabbed the book
out of my hands and kissed it, then handed it back to me. My cheeks
turned red but the episode ended. We each turned back toward the
front of the room, silent again.

When
this exchange ended, Jamie's prayer experience probably picked up
where it had been before I dropped the prayerbook. Mine was
completely altered. I was ashamed, deeply ashamed, and confused. I
did not feel comfortable in that service but until that moment, I
still felt that I belonged. Perhaps particularly because of my camp
experience and my BBYO experience, certainly also because of my
upbringing, I felt deeply, strongly Jewish, part of many Jewish
communities. Suddenly, as my lack of knowledge was called out, I felt
like an outsider, not only to the service but to the entire project
of Judaism and Jewish community. I can still feel the shame and
confusion that washed over me as I realized how important this act
was to him and how foreign it was to me.

When
I interviewed adults in their twenties and thirties about their Jewish experiences, I heard often that they have felt or
even feel this shame and confusion continually. Thirty-something
Katie shared that her family – specifically, her mother – was a
bit of a seeker, interested in various religious and spiritual
rituals, including Christmas. For that reason, her mother's home
during her childhood had a Christmas tree and related symbols. One
Christmas, her sister wore Christmas bells on her shoes to school;
she simply liked the way that the bells sounded and didn't see
anything wrong with a Christmas symbol. She kept them on for Hebrew
school, not really making the connection. “People yelled at her and
made her take them off,” she explained, “and we felt really
outside the mainstream.” Katie and her sister were unfamiliar with
this idea that there should be a strong boundary between Judaism and
Christmas. Another respondent, Dena, told of a more typical lack of
knowledge, of going into Hillel in college and feeling that everyone
“was more traditional” than she was, since they “knew the songs
– they'd all been to Jewish summer camp.” Their innocent ignorance and subsequent confusion
and embarrassment chased Katie
and Dena and many of those whom I interviewed
out of Jewish spaces.

Robert
Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, brought the concept of social capital outside of
economic discourse and offered a foundational concept that binds
individuals into communities. Social capital, generally, can be
considered to consist of three elements: a social network to which
individuals belong or in which individuals participate, the
norms, values, and expectations that those in the network follow,
and sanctions put on members of the network when they do not follow
the network’s norms, values, or expectations. Social
capital - familiarity with norms, with a community's rules, even with
those with influence in the community (the ability to engage in
name-dropping) - allows individuals to participate in a given social
network. The sanctions individuals receive when they lack social
capital protects the network from outsiders, pushing them away.1

When
I dropped my prayerbook decades ago, my lack of Jewish social capital
– my ignorance about this fundamental Jewish prayer norm –
allowed me to be sanctioned by a community member. Similarly, without
Jewish social capital, Katie and Dena
– with Christmas bells, without knowledge of the right songs to
sing – became alienated from Jewish community, groundless, and also
sanctioned, without an understanding of how to fit in. Both
of these interview respondents – like many whom
I interviewed, like many American
Jews – had some Jewish education prior
to these moments.
They were not
complete novices in Jewish life. They could follow
a basic Passover seder and recite the four questions; they could recognize
the key moments in the High Holiday liturgy. This knowledge, however, overshadowed
by a variety of more influential experiences, or their lack of
experiences. They never participated in Jewish youth group or summer
camp, and so their Jewish circles were small,
their awareness of Jewish or Hebrew songs meager. Moreover, their families chose when they were children to live outside of Jewish
neighborhoods, again shrinking their Jewish communities. And, at the celebration of their bar or bat mitzvahs, their parents stopped
mandating participation in Passover
seders or in religious school. Their
parents made choices away
from Jewish life and, specifically, away
from Jewish
social networks and
Jewish communities.
As
a result, their
knowledge of Jews and Judaism stagnated
and their
confidence in themselves as Jews remained
small, pediatric, or even
shrunk as they aged.

The 20- and 30-somethings whom I have interviewed have walked
out of Jewish spaces, feeling alienated, because they were never
taught how to participate in such spaces and
never helped to belong. Scholar of ethno-religious social capital Laurence
Iannacconne argues, “Religious capital is both a prerequisite for
and a consequence of most religious activity”; religious capital
both enables participation and leads to participation. A lack of such
capital – a
lack of certain kinds of knowledge and a lack of feeling at home – prevents
the building of more, as
one begins with questionable feelings of comfort, and then a lack of
knowledge leads to sanctions and to even greater feelings of
exclusion. Without
capital, one cannot participate and subsequently, through
participation, develop more capital.2

And
yet. The reverse, as Iannacconne points out, is also true: As
individuals begin to build (Jewish) social capital, that capital
helps them to increase their (Jewish) communal participation. The Riverway Project demonstrated this. By offering the right
opportunities for engagement in Jewish community, those who
previously felt sanctioned by community, by Jewish social networks,
began to acquire Jewish social capital enough to begin to engage not
only in the Riverway Project, but in other Jewish communities as
well. When the Riverway Project amassed dozens of 20- and
30-somethings with similar (low) levels of comfort with and knowledge
of Jewish life, everyone became equally uncomfortable and
comfortable, everyone learning together. When on lighting the Shabbat candles Riverway Project leadership announced, after saying the
blessing, “That's it. It's as simple as that,” a boundaries were
lowered. When Riverway participants were helped to build community by
sharing their names and where they lived – their exact street –
each time they introduced themselves, participants went from Jewish
isolation to Jewish community (literally, as they began to invite
each other for Shabbat dinner or to events such as the local Jewish
film festival). When prayer services included as many niggunim
(wordless melodies) as prayers, participants could easily internalize
liturgical tunes as part of their Jewish experience; when Riverway
Project leadership said, “It's okay if you don't know the words.
Just lai dai dai. This is simple,” participants were freed to
participate even with little knowledge. As they engaged in a
low-barrier space, where opportunities were designed deliberately for
those brand new to Jewish life, where those in the community were
helped to become assets to each other, sources of support and genuine
community, where sanctions were almost non-existent because everyone
was learning together, Riverway Project participants built Jewish
social capital and became prepared to move into higher-barrier
communities, to use their capital throughout their Jewish lives. For
the first time, many developed a sense of belonging to a Jewish
social network on which they could found their growing Jewish social
capital, through which they could feel confident wandering into other
Jewish spaces.

Carmel
Chiswick recently created a book-length study applying economic
theory to American Jewish families and choices, and she includes an
exploration of Jewish social capital. A review of the book
suggests that American Jews need to “choose to acquire” Jewish
social capital. But it is not that easy, not necessarily a
deliberate choice. Or, to be more precise, powerful sanctions fight
such choices. It feels bad to be sanctioned, to wear Christmas bells
unknowingly inappropriately, to sit quietly when it seems everyone
else is singing, to drop a book and be scolded. Jewish
social capital comprises a lack of knowledge of religious traditions
but also of informal/unwritten norms and a lack of relationships with
other Jews and Jewish communities. It includes knowledges even less
concrete, more internal: comfort, confidence, feelings of internal
validation, a sense of belonging. Developing
all of these knowledges – this capital – is imperative to Jewish participation, and such development asks that Jewish
educational spaces be created where sanctions are low, boundaries are
low, and opportunities and freedom to screw up as deep
and as prevalent and normal as
can be.

1 comment:

Your sanction was imposed by a peer. I can easily pass this article to staff and lay leadership, but how do we get this culture to pervade among the general community? Especially when the Katies and the Denas don't usually feel comfortable sharing their stories with those (likely unknowingly) imposing sanctions.

introduction

Beth Cousens Consulting supports non-profit organizations by leading strategic evaluation and research services, helping organizational leaders to clarify organizational vision, strategy, and indicators of success, supporting educational leaders through coaching and training, and strengthening through research the practice of teaching and learning in Jewish settings.

Our societies today face challenges significant and complex. Addressing them requires each of our best creativity and passion. More than that, we need to work together, to intertwine our chochmat halevevot, the wisdom of our hearts, to trust each other, to help each other identify our strengths and our wisdoms, to develop the capacity to be vulnerable and to take public risks. This requires self-knowledge and simultaneous confidence and humility, confidence enough to know that one does not need to provide an answer in order to be in the game, humility enough to acknowledge that rarely do we have the right (or only) way to address a challenge.

Beth Cousens Consulting works with clients on these issues from a place of insight, rigor, and creativity, vulnerability, curiosity, and partnership, bringing ideas and results that lead to organizational and communal growth.

We respond to society’s challenges from within a rich Jewish ecology, from which we celebrate a vibrant Jewish life. We turn to our tradition for inspiration, community, challenge, and texture. We understand Judaism as a living tradition that has been interpreted and reinterpreted countless times; we encourage every student of Jewish life to find her own relationship to Judaism and her own place in the Jewish narrative.

Beth Cousens holds a PhD in the Sociology of Jewish Education from Brandeis University (2008, matriculation 2001), an MA with honors in Jewish Studies from Baltimore Hebrew University (1996), an MSW from the University of Maryland (1996), and a Certificate in Jewish Communal Service from the Baltimore Institute in Jewish Communal Service (1996). She received a BA (1994) from the University of Michigan in English and Creative Writing.

She has over twenty years of professional leadership experience, working in educational policy and strategy and directly as an educator. She has particular expertise building educational settings that maximize opportunities for individuals to develop as independent Jewish adults, owning their Jewish ideas and practices. Her expertise also focuses on younger (“emerging”) Jewish adults.